Brooke Baldwin: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Journalist Brooke Baldwin anchors CNN’s afternoon CNN Newsroom program. She’s been with the network since 2008 and has hosted various shows since then. She also covered the 2016 presidential election.

You can follow the 38-year-old Baldwin on Instagram and Twitter. She also has a Facebook page. She is based at the CNN New York studios.

Here’s what you need to know about Baldwin’s life and career.

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1. She’s Engaged to Writer/Producer James Fletcher & They Met in 2015

Despite what some gossip sites say, Baldwin is not married to a man named “Jay David.” As she revealed on Twitter in February 2015, she’s never been married.

However, she will be tying the knot soon! In July, she revealed on Instagram that she is getting married to James Fletcher. She told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that he popped the question on her 38th birthday while vacationing in Hawaii.

“We were chilling on the beach. We love sunsets. It was simple. I didn’t want a big thing,” Baldwin told the paper. “He did well. All I wanted on my birthday was to be on a surfboard. I got a little bit more than that.”

Baldwin said they met at a holiday party in 2015 in Atlanta. She invited him to New Orleans when she covered New Year’s Eve for CNN and he agreed to join her. The British Flecher has joined her for coverage around the world, including the Istanbul airport terror attack last year.

“I knew he was the guy since I met him,” Baldwin told the AJC. “He’s been incredibly flexible being with me.”

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2. Baldwin Needed a Glass of Water While in the Middle of Listing President Trump’s Summer Scandals

After President Donald Trump fired Steve Bannon, Baldwin became a viral star thanks to an August 18 segment. She listed Trump’s summer firings and scandals in under three minutes.

She listed every person Trump hired and fired, the times he complained about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, when Congress was unable to pass a new healthcare bill and when he surprisingly banned transgender people from serving in the military. She went right up to Trump’s response to Charlottesville and all the condemnation Trump faced because of his response.

In the middle of the segment, Baldwin needed to take a breather and get a glass of water. Twitter users loved it and she started trending.

https://twitter.com/yankdoodle/status/898611071488933888

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3. Baldwin Studied Spanish at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & Took Classes in Mexico City

Baldwin can speak Spanish. As her CNN biography notes, she was a double major at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, earning a degree in Spanish and journalism. The Atlanta native also took classes at the Universidad Ibero Americana in Mexico City while earning her UNC degree. She graduated from UNC in 2001.

In 2017, Baldwin was the UNC commencement speaker. She also appeared in a “Day in the Life” video for the university.

“It’s totally a dream to be here at CNN,” Baldwin told UNC. “I’m an Atlanta girl, who went to Carolina, who went to journalism school, who thought ‘maybe would it be possible one day to actually work at CNN?’ It’s a total dream.”

Before joining CNN, Baldwin worked at local stations in Charlottesville, Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia; and Washington, D.C. She joined CNN in 2008.

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4. Baldwin Has an Emmy Nomination for Her Coverage of Eric Garner’s Death

During her nine years at CNN, Baldwin has covered countless major stories and has earned awards for her work. She has an Emmy nomination for her coverage of Eric Garner, the New York man who died in a police chokehold, and the protests that followed.

Baldwin was also a member of the Peabody-award winning CNN teams that covered the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill and the 2008 presidential election. She also picked up a Silver World Medal for Best Investigative Report at the 2012 New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards for her “To Catch a Killer” documentary.

In 2012, Baldwin was among the CNN anchors who reported live from Newtown, Connecticut, the site of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.

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5. In 2015, Baldwin Produced a Town Hall With 40 Victims of Gun Violence

In 2015, Baldwin was a Peabody Award finalist for her work on town hall where she interviewed 40 people affected by recent incidents of gun violence. The project was called “The Loneliest Club.”

“I’ve been in journalism for 16 years. This was the most raw, emotional interview — with 40 people — I have ever been a part of,” Baldwin told TVNewser after the town hall. “You can’t not watch.”

In a May 2017 interview with Parade, Baldwin called the phrase “fake news” “BS.”

“All I know is what I do each and every day and what we do here at CNN which is all about the facts, asking tough questions, challenging leaders and our own leadership in this country,” Baldwin told Parade. “I realize that I have a voice and I can only control my two hours on this 24-hour cable network. It matters that we have balance and facts and push people when they need to be pushed so that we can give the accurate, fair, balanced piece to the viewer and then it’s up to the viewer to be the judge. That’s what I feel like my job is and that’s why I feel that now more than ever journalism is a crucial piece of this landscape in 2017.”

In that same interview, Baldwin said that she has a full-day job. Just because viewers don’t see her until the afternoon doesn’t mean she doesn’t have to be up at 6:00 a.m.

“I’m constantly reading papers, emails, Twitter and I help drive the editorial of my show with my executive producer,” she told Parade. “I’m very hands on.”